Interview: 'It's Just Been So Fun': Brian Rosenthal and Joey Richter on SPIES ARE FOREVER

Spies Are Forever: The West End Concert, an adaptation of the hit show of the same name, will be playing at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on 3 September. The show, written by Tin Can Bros (Corey Lubowich, Joey Richter and Brian Rosenthal), tells the story of Agent Curt Mega [Obioma Uguala] in the 1960s as he struggles with Cold War politics and a supervillain with a dastardly Nazi plot. 

Recently, we had the chance to speak with Brian Rosenthal and Joey Richter. We discussed what it was like to create Spies Are Forever, how the show has changed since it first premiered in 2016 and what it was like to perform another one of their shows, Solve It Squad, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!

So starting with a bit of a general question, how did you first get involved in the world of theatre? 

Brian: Well, let's start with how we met, maybe, and then move backwards. Joey, Corey and I all met at the University of Michigan. We started working with Starkid and taking those musicals and putting them online. Cut to years later when we all moved to Los Angeles, we decided we wanted to work together and create our own work in the vein of musical parodies, films, digital series, that kind of thing. But to rewind all the way back, I've been doing theatre since I was a kid. I just went, “I am obsessed and this is going to be my life,” and it has been! How about you, Joey?

Joey: I'm an only child, so I am a child of a lot of imagination by yourself. My whole childhood was watching movies, watching things and repeating them back to myself, because as a kid by himself, just coming up with things - obviously, I had friends, but no brothers and sisters in my home. So I dressed up a lot! I would redo scenes from movies I saw or shows we went to, things like that. So it just became part of who I was as a kid. My parents at one point were asking me, “Oh, what do you want to do?” I think at one point as a kid, I was like, “Oh, I'd love to be a doctor. I'd love to be a lawyer.” And then they tell a story about how when I realised that all these characters were things you could do in a show or a play or something, I could just pretend to be all those things, I'm sure they breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing they wouldn't have to put me through medical school.

And then, like Brian said, the way we all met was very much at a time in which the industry was changing. YouTube was becoming a thing and there was a lot of emphasis on, “You’ve got to make your own things. You’ve got to create your own work.” So a lot of what we did with Starkid and, as a result, Tin Can Brothers, was bred from that moment in the entertainment industry. We took it and we ran with that, and we've been running with it for ten years

For those unfamiliar, can you tell us a bit about this show that's coming to London, Spies Are Forever?

Brian: Spies Are Forever, our spy musical on stage . . . We first did a Kickstarter to raise the money to put up an initial production in Los Angeles in 2016, so we've been working on this show for eight years. Since that initial production had such a warm reception in LA, according to the TCB/Starkid model, we decided to put it up online. Over time, it's garnered three-plus million views and an international following.

We love this concept of trying to make the impossible possible by doing a spy movie on stage. We've gone on to do developmental concerts in Chicago and New York. As part of our 10-year anniversary this year, we just did a Rocky Horror-style screening of the YouTube video with a lot of the original live performers coming out on stage to perform the songs and audience interaction. That's led us all the way up to this Tuesday, performing the show at the Gillian Lynne on the West End with a bunch of wonderful West End performers. It just seems like the logical next step to keep working on this to eventually get to the next production.

Joey: Like Brian said, the goal is to try and put a spy movie on stage. So it's got inklings of James Bond, a little bit of Austin Powers stuff, a lot of John le Carré and Mission Impossible. The funny thing is that when this first came about as an idea, it originally was a Revolutionary War thing. And then, very smartly, decided not to do that because then, a year and a half later, it was like, “Have you heard of this thing called Hamilton?” Thank God we didn't try to tap into the Revolutionary War market!

But yeah, in watching a lot of movies and getting the inspiration, we were able to craft the show that that taps into a lot of those tropes we like to see on screen that don't get to make it on stage a lot, and then develop a score with TalkFine, Pierce Siebers and Clark Baxtresser, that feels like an homage to those movies and those things you love, but also takes a lot of tropes and turns them on their head. It's not quite a parody and it's not quite a total homage. It's a mixture of both, which is, hopefully, for people watching, something fun and new. It's exciting!

What was the creative process like? Like you were saying, it's not really a parody, not really an homage. How do you balance these aspects while still creating an original work?

Joey: Thinking back about eight years ago, I know we watched a ton of movies that we pulled from, be it some of the Mission Impossible movies, GoldenEye, the Bond movies, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, things that feel like, “Oh, we can pull this kind of element from it!” It's less of like, “What's a story we want to crib in this exact show?” But rather, “What are the key elements to this genre that we can pull in? What is our version of doing that trope or that specific thing you'd see in a spy movie?” And it helps because it creates an entry point for both the audience and for us as creators to go, “Okay, we have all these templates we can work off of, and then we can rearrange the puzzle pieces to become what our version of that is.”

Brian: The genre is so consistent! We knew we wanted a tech genius character because that's like 75% of the spy genre. And then, in general, in our work, I think we enjoy that genre entry point and then turning it on its head. And also just finding, especially with a musical set in the Cold War, what themes resonate with what's actually going on today as well. So there's this whole journey with the main character coping with being this classical spy who drinks a martini and saves the day and gets the girl, that kind of thing. But the world is moving on, and can he move on with it as technology advances?

Joey: And also, that just isn't his character. In some ways, there’s a meta-awareness, both as us, as the writers who have created this character, but also what the character is going through, of fighting against what that trope is that is classic because innately, that is not who the main character is. But you get to the end of the show and you go, “Oh, this is the kind of guy this is.”

There's a number in the show called “Doing This,” in which the two main spy characters, Agent Curt Mega and Tatiana, who's this Russian femme fatale character, have the classic, “This is two characters who are about to have a romantic moment” song, and the song itself is about the expectations of what should happen right now. And then, by the end of the song, you realise, “Oh, maybe these two characters don't do this. Maybe it's actually something they don't need to do, or something they don't want to do,” which is one of the main points creatively that we tap into in a lot of elements of the show. What is that expectation of what this genre and trope should give you and where do we try to take it?

What is it like to be bringing Spies Are Forever to London?

Joey: We were just at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a month, so, more than ever, it feels nice to be here doing a quick, zippy rehearsal process and not be completely jet lagged because we're already adjusted to the time frame, which is really nice!

Brian: Yeah, it's cool! If you're producing theatre in London, you want to be on or around the West End, and this opportunity to work with so many new performers with such incredible credits . . . We've been in the rehearsal room the last two days, all day, and to be able to see the talent and also just get to know these people personally, they're all so lovely! It's just been so fun.

And as creators, whenever we take something we've made and we put it out into the world, to other people, and see how they interpret it, that is probably one of the most rewarding things. For me as a writer, just to be like, “Here's my idea,” and then they take it and so wholeheartedly bring it to life in such an incredible way that always exceeds my expectations of what it can be, and they put their own personal spin on it. 

Joey: In some of the iterations, either in New York at 54Below or earlier this year, when we did this live-to-film screening, there's been a few points in which new people have come in and we've expanded certain tracks to allow different people to sing certain songs. This is the first time where it feels like, across the board, this is a whole new group of people working on and tackling the material. It's a very odd way of doing things as writers, our usual trajectory of filming it, doing an initial run, it going on YouTube, and it becoming this thing that people identify with and becomes the show, but innately, like..

Brian: ...Different from the traditional musical theatre model of starting with a concert and then building to a production.

Joey: Exactly! We just last year started to license a couple of our shows and it's the first time - and we've gotten to see a few productions - to make the shows feel more like what a traditional theatre piece feels like, where different people come in and have a different interpretation. And that's very fascinating and very helpful as writers, to be able to see it in a different context with different people, because we are all so used to, “Oh, this is how this person does it!” And that's always been amazing because we work with a lot of talented people in general - it's really nice. But to have different performers who bring a whole new spin to it, or ask different questions about the way a certain scene translates . . . There's a few references in the show where people were like, “What is this?”

Brian: There’s a reversal too with the accents! Normally we have a couple of Americans doing English accents, and now we have actual English accents, and then English actors doing American accents, which is very funny!

You mentioned that you were just up at the Edinburgh Fringe with Solve It Squad. What was that experience like?

Brian: It was an adventure, to say the least! It was incredible. I will say, because we've never been to the UK before and because we have an international fan base, we did not have a typical “First Fringe” experience - in a good way. The audiences were very warm. We did a lot of typical marketing, but we didn't have to do a lot of the grinding that a lot of people do to promote their show while also performing. So in that regard, it was incredible to perform that show for these very warm audiences every night.

That show started in 2017 and we've been developing those characters through different iterations for years, but to return to this original origin story of the Solve It Squad, this fucked-up Scooby Doo gang that reunites to solve the murder of their dead dog, to be able to return as writers and make some edits was really fun.

Joey: But it was an exhausting month! We had some illnesses. We had five understudies work through the show in various roles over the course of the month. But again, similar to the Spies experience, it was interesting to be in a position in which new people were then tackling parts that they had never done before. The core group of people who were doing it and came to Fringe have done this since 2017, so it allowed us to kind of look at the material in a different way and consider the dynamics of the way the show is cast, and how, energy-wise, different characters bring different things to each scene. 

What do you hope audiences take away from Spies Are Forever?

Joey: I, first and foremost, hope that they aren't offended by the way we wrote any British characters! I hope no one's like, “We don't talk like that . . .”

Brian: I think we really dig into Americans in this show, though.

Joey: We do. We make Americans look stupid, which is good, because we are!

Brian: This is the first time a lot of people are going to be able to experience this music and these scene excerpts in person. I think that's going to be magical for us, and, I hope, for the audience. It's going to be great. A lot of people have watched this show for years on YouTube, so to come together to celebrate it elevates the whole experience. And if it's like anything like some of our past projects, it'll feel really special because of that.

Joey: And for anyone coming in who is new to what we've been doing, I hope we are able to make some new fans and bring some people into the project...We have created something that is a homage to these things that people are easily able to identify and then go on the ride for what the show does.

Do you have any scenes or songs you're most looking forward to performing?

Brian: I'm stepping into new characters, so that's fun for me to step into a couple new characters and sing some songs like “One More Shot,” which is a really fun bop.

Joey: “One More Shot” is great. “Not So Bad” is a funny number . . .  It's always weird to be like, “I'm so excited to perform the Nazi number!” 

Brian: We have a couple members of the cast who were and actively are in Operation Mincemeat, which we absolutely loved. And they were just like, “Oh yeah, the Nazi number? No problem.” [Laughs] 

Joey: And it was fun seeing the show [Operation Mincemeat] too because, especially combined with Spies and Solve It Squad, the idea of a small cast and people just popping around and switching hats, I'm like, “This is what I love about theatre and what I hope to do in anything I create or am a part of.” So it immediately made me go beyond just the two days of rehearsal with these people that we have connected with being like, “Oh, I feel a deep kinship to what all these people do and perform in.” So that was really fun. Like Claire-Marie Hall, the track she is doing is one in which she gets to play a bunch of series of characters. She's been perfect during rehearsals. But also you just watch it [Operation Mincemeat] and go, “Oh yeah, this is right up their alley.” It's so exciting!

And finally, how would you describe Spies Are Forever in one word?

Joey: I think there’s one word . . . And it’s just “spies!” [Laughs] It's the word we say most in the show!

Brian: Queer, just because there is this element where it is about not adhering to societal norms, in the LGBTQ+ sense but also in the other societal senses. And also in the sense of humour, finding these off, bizarre moments.

Joey: And if you combine those and it’s “queer spies,” then that is the show. That's the whole show. Queer spies.

Spies Are Forever: The West End Concert runs on 3 September at the Gillian Lynn Theatre.